After bad injury, Sean Payton shares plan for starters in preseason

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton probably didn’t plan on sharing his preseason plan on Wednesday.

But after offensive lineman Quinn Bailey was carted off in an air cast, and taken directly to the hospital in an ambulance, things changed. Payton said Bailey fractured his ankle and will need surgery, his season is almost certainly over.

So after training camp, Payton was asked about playing his starters in the preseason. Especially given the brutal injury the Broncos had just suffered.

“I think the preseason is important, so I don’t want to say I’m old school, but two years ago we were last in the league with players injured… last year we finished first in the NFL,” Payton said.

Of course, Payton wasn’t here two years ago. That was Nathaniel Hackett and the old training staff, that suffered a huge number of injuries. It’s Payton’s way of saying his staff did a much better job keeping the team healthy, which is an indisputable fact.

With that in mind, Payton’s not going to change his philosophy because of what happened to Bailey.

“We’re going to play our starters in the preseason. I think it’s important to build a callus.  And obviously you’re going to weigh the reps,” Payton said.

He went on to tell the media in Week 1 of preseason it’ll be a certain number of snaps for the starters, with Week 2 being the same. He added they’ll see where the Broncos are at before Week 3, the final preseason game in which the starters traditionally don’t play much.

Payton concluded by saying again it’s “important” and he played the starters in the preseason last year.

It stinks what happened to Bailey on Wednesday, but Payton isn’t going to let one injury change how he attacks the preseason.